A van driver has been jailed for 10 years after being found guilty of smuggling seven migrants into the UK via a cross-Channel ferry.

Anas Al Mustafa hid the migrants – who were heard screaming for help as they struggled to breathe – in the hidden compartment of a van on a Dieppe-Newhaven crossing in February.

They were eventually freed when a crew member used an axe to break down a fake partition to get them out.

Dame Angela Eagle, minister for border security and asylum, described Al Mustafa, 43, as an “evil criminal” after his sentencing on Friday.

Al Mustafa of Heather Crescent, Swansea, was convicted of assisting unlawful entry to the UK at Lewes Crown Court last week.

Jurors unanimously found the father-of-two guilty of trafficking people in the specially-adapted van.

The discovery at the East Sussex port sparked a major response from emergency services, with ambulances, police and Border Force in attendance.

Dame Eagle said it was “a miracle” that the seven migrants “are still alive after the conditions they were put in at the hands of Mr Mustafa”.

Sentencing Al Mustafa at Lewes Crown Court on Friday, Judge Laing told him he had made the journey “for financial gain” and “knew the huge and obvious risks to the lives of the people that were wholly unknown to you”.